Seven years ago, back in 2011, the first fingerprint sensor for smartphones was launched, when we at Fingerprints introduced our small swipe sensor for the mobile market. Some years later the technology evolved to capacitive touch sensors, and became available on both the Android and Apple platforms. Since then, biometrics has become an integral and natural part of our everyday lives. Used by billions of consumers around the world to unlock their phones, make mobile payments and protect personal data and apps. The familiarity and trust from fingerprint biometrics on the mobile has paved the way for more biometrics, new biometrics and for biometrics to move into new formfactors.

We have entered the second phase for mass market biometrics

In 2017 we started to see more biometrics coming into our phones, a combination of touchless technologies with iris and face, combined with fingerprint touch. Multimodality, a more-than-one solution that can provide both extra security and extra convenience, as it enhances the users' options and caters for various situations. On the fingerprint technology side, the next innovation the industry is working on is to move the sensor under the display, so you can touch either a specific part of the screen or anywhere, removing the need to have a physical button. This boosts the flexibility for the design and opens up for new use cases.

But, biometrics is also increasingly moving into new devices and applications like door locks, suitcases, padlocks, and not least, the humble payment card, where the market potential and benefits are tremendous, which we explore in our recent eBook.

A connected future with biometrics everywhere?

Who knows exactly what the future will bring, but there are already lots going on around our globe to digitize our homes and entire cities, making them connected and smart. Smarter for the people who live and work in them, smarter and better for the environment. Smarter ways to shop, with self-checkouts, grab and go solutions, and re-ordering devices like Amazon Dash. Smarter transportation with self-driving cars, autonomous public transport, and automated border controls, letting citizens and passengers move smoother and safer. Smarter ways to control and monitor our homes, and internet connected home appliances that are transforming the way we wash, cook, garden, and clean. This will all have positive and significant impact on our lives and for the entire society. However, there’s also a darker flip side.

As our things get smarter, so are the criminals. Way too often we read headlines about cyber-attacks and data breaches. Beyond costing serious money, this also cost us serious worries. Indeed, our global research* revealed that 22% of consumers have experienced fraud, and 51% are very or extremely concerned.  

According to recent report the market for biometric systems will be worth close to 33Bn USD by 2022. In a future where everything with electricity is expected to be connected to the internet, biometrics is the only way to solve security in a human and convenient way. Wherever you need to sign in, identify yourself, or authenticate different actions like payments or access. Biometrics is something you are, not something you have to remember, like a key, password, or PIN code, and cannot easily be obtained by others, second-guessed or hacked. A combination of biometrics, and other sensors and methods, will also be important for the future of continuous authentication, to ensure the right person is the actual user of the given device or application at any given time. Our Biometric ID, that will finally enable us to put an end to all the cumbersome passwords and PINs, where you are the key to everything.

Watch our new film where we give a glimpse into how we at Fingerprints see this future.

* Fingerprints™ in collaboration with Kantar TNS, 4,000 online consumers in UK, USA, China, India